Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Westerly Middle School's SALT revealed strengths in several categories. The building itself is designed into 'pods' which each are a community within a community and establish a safe place for the students to feel at home. The mathematics skills were shown in most classes that ran well in the comfortable calm atmosphere of the school and its staff. The students problem solving skills are also developed in multiple classroom under various conditions and have begun taking both math and problem solving out of the classroom environment. These strengths show their weaknesses in greater light as the students reading and writing skills are underdeveloped. They are not able to express themselves well and communicate through writing in all classes. While the main subject of English covers it other classroom teachers do not follow through with the specific skills for their classroom. While reading time is provided, how to do it is left to the student to muddle through on their own. The real world applications of what the student are leaning however does encourage the student to do their best while the hands on side gives them first hand experience. The classrooms themselves are not diversified to their potential in all the areas in which this would be best for the students. Technology is also a bit lost in some of the classrooms where it may be mentioned but the students to not get to work with it themselves. The pod set up speaks well for the main team teacher to work together however the allied arts teachers are not brought in to work with them even when the students spend part of their day in the allied arts as well as their own team.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Listed below are the commendations and recommendations from the SALT team to Gaudet Middle School. This report was taken from 2004, and I believe the school has already taken many of the recommendations and addressed the classrooms and needs to improve the school. I have had the opportunity to go out to the 5th, 6th, and 7th grade classes and all of them had at least one group activity or an opportunity to share and counsel with each other during the period that I visited them. I have observed, especially in my CT's room, that students seldom work in isolation (except during a test or quiz) and are constantly sharing ideas with one another, seeking out affirmation or a new point of view on their thoughts. Some students may feel comfortable to do this freely, but my CT has definitely had a role in promoting classroom camraderie because she always asks them to share their reponses or discuss with their neighbor before giving an answer for the whole class.
I also noticed that teacher seem to work together and share ideas when planning an activity. They also seek input from co-workers before forging ahead with a new idea. This strengthens teacher relationships and I think the students pick up on that, which also improves their teacher relationships and even peer relationships.
The commendations or strengths were noted of Gaudet already remain the same, and I think they are some of the most important qualities to have as students and teachers. It makes teaching much easier when there is respectful classroom behavior and students/teachers acknowledge each other as equal human beings. It helps that many of the students come from a well-rounded home enviroment, but from watching all the different teachers, I can tell that their dedication to exemplifying respect and instilling it in their students plays an important role, too.
STRENGTHS
Respectful classroom behavior
Student centered co-curricular classes
Interdisciplinary program in technology
Are respectful and well-mannered in their classrooms
Excellent opportunities for professional development
Thorough self-study
NEEDS/ WEAKNESSES
Work in isolation
Want more hands-on learning
Do not have opportunities to problem solve
Raise the level of expectations for student and teacher learning.
Develop instruction strategies that address the multiple learning styles of the students in your classrooms.
Provide structures that model and support collaborative learning.
Use the team structure effectively to collaborate your work in learning and teaching.
Use the team structure to create strategies for meeting the developmental needs of the young adolescent.
Provide students with daily opportunities to problem solve in all subject areas especially math.
Give students more opportunities to think critically and analytically.
Write daily in all classrooms.
Identify a common vision for the future of Joseph H. Gaudet Middle School.
Use the self-study results and your school improvement plan to create a true middle school learning community.
Strengthen the identity of the cluster teams, and build school spirit.
Define leadership roles clearly, and implement them in a pro-active manner.
Outline a discipline policy with consequences, and enforce those consequences consistently
Expose students with special needs to grade-level curriculum with proper modifications.
Improve overall communication with parents and community.
Develop opportunities for common planning time.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
North Kingstown Senior High School reports that it performs very well in Writing, scoring above the state average. Students also report good grades, above the state average in reading. One of their weaknesses I found was that learning by interacting within their communities is reported to be hardly ever, less than a couple times a year. They have a very low minority population and I believe that I would be able to benefit this school by getting them to read a little bit more about their community as an initiative to become interested in this idea and helping them get to discover at least some diversity within their school.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The major area of concern for Chariho HS is the availability of space to function. In the SALT report, funding has been approved for construction of a new wing. The library will also be moved and the learning and administrative spaces will be more spacious and functional. It is very apparent to me that Chariho needs additional space. For example, when attempting to leave the classroom after the bell rings to get a drink of water across the school, by the time I re-enter the classroom the second bell will have already rung. This is because the school is so incredibly crowded, and walking to the next class involved walking at a very slow pace behind a wall of students entering and exitinbg classrooms and checking their lockers for materials. The proposed limit for the school is 550 students, while the current size is over 1400. They need more space.
ANother area of improvement in the SALT report is in cooperative learning throughout the department. In department meetings, teachers are infomed to provide individualized tests designed by teachers to be distributed to the head of the dept. The head of the cepot then determines the questions that will be given to every student in the biology, gen science classrooms. This process is done for a quiz and a unit test every quarter, as well as a formal lab. This is to ensure that students are recieving similar information that can be useful when taking the NECAPs, and also to ensure that each classroom can be held accountable for the information on the quiz, test, lab material. It is a form of accountability as well as practice for standardized testing.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey for westerly middle school showed its commendations for among other things the design and available technology. The survey did however go on to point out the deficiency of underutilizing the technology that it had praised. There is no argument that the schools design is perfect for a middle school. The Pods create an atmosphere indicative of bond building and trust for both team teachers and students. Westerly middle school also has the most impressive technology available in any school I have seen in Rhode Island. While the SALT survey recognized the presence of the technology, they suggested the utilization of it was lacking. Westerly Middle schools improvement plan emphasizes the importance of an increase of collaboration between teachers. The increase of collaboration includes everything from team meeting time to district meetings.
In my first day in the school, I was able to see the clear advantages of the design of the building. In my visits to the school not only have my initial thoughts about the advantages of the schools design been reaffirmed I find new reasons to be impressed everyday. While the technology may have been underutilized in 2007 when the survey was done, there is no shortage of its use presently. In the two weeks, I have been student teaching I have already used two different projectors, a desktop, a laptop, a digital camera, a laptop cart for the students, and a document camera. While the Pods separate me from the other classrooms, I know that my team utilizes the schools arsenal of technology daily. The schools plan to improve collaboration among teachers is also well in effect. I have observed many different types of meeting the school has implemented to achieve its goals. There is a team meeting everyday, a grade level meeting once a week, a leadership meeting every other Thursday morning, and IEP meeting whenever necessary. Meeting such as IEP and parent teacher conferences are usually done during the teachers personal planning period to avoid canceling a team meeting.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey data finds Coventry High School to posess dedicated faculty who work well together, numerous opportunities for reading, writing, and problem solving, and specialized expertise. The survey also makes the following suggestions for improvement:
Engage all learners, challenge all students, and believe and expect that every student is both capable and can learn at high levels.
Provide explicit and quality instruction in how to read, write, and problem solve in all courses. Seek professional development to do this.
Ensure that instruction is relevant and connected to students’ lives. Facilitate learning to ensure this.
Encourage, celebrate, and motivate every student to be a life-long learner.
Seek professional development in differentiated instruction in how to engage all learners.
Continue to provide a variety of opportunities for reading, writing, and problem solving.
Continue to collaborate with your colleagues to share your expertise.
I've always felt that by tying the subject matter that you are presenting into students' everday lives, or at least showing them how it relates to their lives, makes a bigger impact on their motivation to pay attention to what you (as the teacher) are talking about. Facilitating instruction can also be a tricky task due to time constraints on classes, especially large classes. Acting as a guide for instruction rather than a conveyer of information (or a dictator) takes time to accomplish but I feel that the student is more apt to retain the information if they are coming up with the answers to their questions instead of having the answer just handed to them. They are forced to think about the problem at hand, use their prior knowledge/logical thinking skills, and come up with an answer on their own using the guidence of the instructor for assistence. I see a great deal of practical application and real-life connection of subject material in many of the classes that I have observed at Coventry High School. There is also a great deal of encouragement/motivation being demonstrated by the faculty toward their students. The one thing that I do not see a tremendous amount of is facilitating instruction, which in my opinion, can be very difficult to accomplish in the average high school classroom setting. In higher level classes this is often accomplished very easily and without a great deal of time elapsed due to the motivation of the students and their ability to problem solve. I do see evendence of this at Coventry HS. The toss-up between using this with a lower-level class is do you sacrifice the quality of the information retained or the quantitiy of information you are able to present. I find that lower performing students often are easily frustrated (causing them to become less motivated) when trying to solve the problem on their own without being walked through it, which takes time. If they are just given the example and then the answer, they often do not get very much out of the lesson. I think the school realizes this because I see efforts to find a balance between quality of instruction and quantity of instruction.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Fortunately, my CT was actually a member of the school-improvement committee last year. The biggest issue he said was the lack of security. Currently, the school has implemented a security plan that allows open-access to the school during the morning hours (when buses arrive). After that the school is locked-down and the only way to get in is through the front door. One of the secretary's must buzz you in after you state you purpose for coming in. Although this system is not perfect, and obviously there are still situations where people can get in and out of the school unauthorized; it is an exponential increase over the old-system.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Based on the 2007-2008 SALT survey reports for North Kingstown High School:
Strengths at NK include:
- Teachers rate attitudes toward educational practices high, including:
Citizenship, social competence, and critical thinking
Small group instruction
Integration and interdisciplinary practices
Authentic mastery assessment and instruction
- Teachers have parent contact and involvement at least once a quarter throughout the school year
- Teachers monitor individual student strengths often
- Teachers use rubrics and scoring sheets often to evaluate student work
- Group problem solving and small group discussion are used several times a month to weekly
- Students are assessed through a variety of methods (short answer, multiple choice, worksheets, textbook problems)
- Teachers disagree that students are disruptive in the classroom
- A developed curriculum
- School is flexible with schedules in regards to regrouping students or modifying the length of periods
- Parents are involved in their children's education
- Teachers feel supported by local and national teacher unions
- Most teachers have never felt the fear of being hurt or bothered by a student at school and felt the need to bring personal protection to school
- Overall, students perceive a positive school climate
- 80% of students think they will graduate from high school (close to the actual graduation rate)
- Student attendance is 90% on average
- Technology is often used in school (student and teacher use)
- Parents feel NK is a good school and that the school is supported by the community
Weaknesses/Areas to improve at NK include:
- Teachers tend to disagree with the importance of heterogeneous grouping and inclusion in their individual classroom
- Teachers rarely ever teach interdisciplinary units
- Teachers need to identify student learning styles in an effort to match instruction to student strengths and needs
- Small group active instruction are only used a few times a month
- Teachers report a lack in (team) planning time
Based on the above mentioned needs at NK, I see the following in my classes:
- Teaches disagreeing with heterogeneous groupings
- Very little interdisciplinary units
- Individual student learning styles not being considered
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
According to the Salt Visit Report Westerly Middle School have both strengths and weaknesses. I will address both of those here.
Strengths
The Westerly Middle school is able to create a comfortable learning environment in which students are comfortable taking risks and chances. The school within a school form of the pod (team) areas is huge in helping to foster that. Additionally the teachers on effective teams spend a large amount of time collaborating daily in an effort to help their students achieve their best. With this practice no student is left behind. Furthermore teachers are passionate and open to change that will improve instruction. Numeracy is also taught very well across all content areas. As an example of this would be the riptides Team Economy which not only featured the typical student jobs and pay for the upcoming auction, but also included taxes, rentals (lockers and seats) and a banking and payroll process. A creative way of teaching numeracy in a real world scenario.
In need of Improvement
No school is perfect, and although WMS is very good at teaching numeracy, they could use improvement in teaching literacy skills. Although reading and writing are often used, they are not often used well. Many reading and writing assignments are surface level and superficial. Teachers need to give more direct guidance and feedback; in addition they all need to adopt the school wide writing rubric and procedure. They also need to incorporate more critical thinking into their lessons.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Strengths:
There are several strengths of Exeter West Greenwich Junior High School that are mentioned in the SALT visit report from December 8, 2000. The report goes in to detail about the community environment that the school portrays and how the parents, teacher, administrators, staff, and students all form this tight knit community for a positive environment for learning. The teachers are implementing the standards in the junior high and working with rubrics to enforce expectations. The students at Exeter West Greenwich are willing to learn, are respectful to others, and feel safe in their school. In the classroom, the teachers use various styles of presenting information including hands on activities, group work, community outreach, and projects. Teachers of all subjects are integrating writing into their curriculum. Overall, the sense of community at Exeter West Greenwich is outstanding and evident as the students, teachers, and parents work well together in a positive learning environment.
Needs:
There are some recommendations that were stated to improve the Exeter West Greenwich Junior High School. There seems to be a struggle to see a common future direction of the school from the faculty, administration, and staff. With a common vision, the school would have a stronger unity and goals to work towards together. Communication between the levels of the school community could be improved and would help develop clear procedures for discipline in the school. In the classroom, few students demonstrated complex problem solving techniques and real world connections would benefit the students. Teachers seem to be grading on assessment level only and not using assessments to identify personal needs of the students. It is clear that the students need to be challenged to a higher level of thinking and hold a responsibility to there own learning. The needs of the Junior High are numerated in the SALT visit report and I believe, with my experience thus far in the junior high school, that the improvements are being made.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
I found that Curtis Corner's school improvement plan was less than helpful, as it only contained information on improving by 2% in their math and reading NECAP scores, and an improved positive response on their SALT survey report. After attending a few team meetings, I found that the school's NECAP math and reading scores did go up by at least 2%. In regards to their hopes for the SALT survey, (this being a personal opinion) I wonder if they would ever have a goal of less than "the number of positive student responses on the SALT survey in the areas of percieved school climate, school safety, and school self-esteem will increase". Although, I suppose if they don't publish it, there would be no way of knowing that the school cared about their percieved school climate, safety, and self-esteem; and I'm sure that someone somewhere with a malicious intent would bring this up on the school. (Recieve brownie points from the helicopter parents!)
I did find the SALT survey visit report itself to be rather helpful, as it really spoke truthfully. Curtis Corner is an overall good school, safe and comfortable for students. The community around the area is also fairly
The note about the teachers- "teachers in some classrooms engage their students in real world complex problem-solving learning activities" is true, since it only applies to some teachers, "however, many teachers still view themselves as information givers"; which I have found to be true- even with my own teacher. The school is struggling in its own way, with the prospect of budget cuts causing the sixth graders to be moved back to the elementary school, and seventh and eigth graders moved down the street to the other middle school in the district, Broad Rock. We shall see how it turns out, in my eyes and the eyes of the SALT survey, they are under brilliant leadership to take them through.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey for BRMS noted that the schools strong points include:
The conscientious efforts of teachers to provide a high quality education
The pride teachers take in their work and their eagerness to share their work with others
Teachers’ collaboration within their own individual teams
The good rapport teachers have with their students
Teachers’ genuine concern for the academic and social development of their students
I have noticed all of these characteristics first hand. Most notably teachers' collaboration with teams and teachers' eagerness to share their work. I have observed team meetings in 3 schools and the teachers at BR seam to be the most respectful, cooperative, and goal oriented of all. This strong report extends beyond mere team meetings and branches out across the entire faculty. Teachers are constantly sharing ideas with one another, helping with both in and out of school problems, and working collaboratively to give each student all of the necessary resources for success.
The survey recommended that teachers improve in the following areas:
Expand the current practice of providing detailed diagnostic written comments that students are able to use
to revise and improve their work school wide.
Examine and refine the current use of rubrics and checklists to ensure the appropriate use of each
assessment tool.
Provide “job-embedded” professional development that focuses on differentiated instruction, teaming
practices, establishing routines in the classroom that support cooperative learning, teaching reading in all
subject areas within a balanced literacy framework, creating analytical rubrics, and standards-based
instructional practices. When appropriate, capitalize on the talents that exist in this building for in-class
modeling and sharing.
I do not have much of a basis for comparison in this respect as these recommendations date back to 2006, but I can say that I have noticed that these areas are addressed in a number of ways. The first recommendation seams to focus on feed-back. My CT goes above and beyond providing students with lots of feedback. Students will get information not only on the science concepts of an assignment, but papers are ALWAYS marked for spelling, grammar and use of English in general. This gets students to think about their writing to a deeper level than in most science class rooms.
The second recommendation looks at the use of rubrics. Students in this science class have had a number of projects all with a through and easy to read rubric. Students are given the rubric in advance so they know exactly how their work will be grade.
Finally, as far as giving students personal development opportunities, students in this class have recently been given a project where they were asked to apply for a job as an organelle. Students had to think about their own skills and abilities and compare them to the functions of the cell parts to find a job they would be suited for. They had to fill out an application listing their skill, talents, etc. as well as obtain 2 recommendation letters from their pears. So students got experience in finding how their abilities could be suited for a job, filling out job applications, as well as writing recommendation letters.
Because I cannot compare BR today to BR 3 years ago it is hard to say if progress has been made, but I can see clear evidence that BR has put an effort into improving in the areas that the survey suggested.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
There are so many strengths that North Smithfield Middle School possesses that it would be difficult to list them all. What I first noticed during my placement at this school was the great atmosphere all around the school. Some middle schools implement strategies such as no bully zones to make sure that students are not making fun of other students. At North Smithfield Middle School there is no need for such policy because all the kids seem to get along great. There are very little issues with fighting at the school, also not many issues involving bullying. When walking around the hallways it is difficult to distinguish who is friends with who because it seems like everyone is friends with each other. Obviouslly there are some exceptions, but it is definitely a friendly school community that I know from experience is not always present. The students are happy to be at school, most of them have a will to learn and a sense of belonging to the school and the community.
In the SALT survey some of the improvements that were stated that the school needed to make was professional development days focusing on standard based education. I know that in the science department they have just received new books. They are great resources and a great tool for enhancing student learning, but for this year the teachers have to feel out how to pace themselves through the different books to cover all of the standards. The Mcdougall books line has multiple different books, such as Motion and Forces, and Matter and Energy. The teachers are learning how to use these new book resources as a guide, but still get through the standards which they need to cover throughout the year. I am sure that this year will be difficult for them, but in years to come these Mcdougall resources are going to be a great tool to enhance student learning.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Upon reviewing the Salt Survey data for Slater Middle School I discovered the following information. Slater Middle School Is characterized as having a strong leadership team and a well written school improvement plan which has not yet been fully implemented. There is good communication between the leadership team and the community as well as with the teachers. There is a sense of pride for all involved which is indicative of the weel developed sense of caring by a majority of the teachers who go (the extra mile).
The school has cored well above average in mathematical skills, average in reading and writing skills and below average in mathematical problem solving.
Improvement by teachers in using differentiated teaching was noted as an area in need of improvemnt. The school was lacking in the teaching of reading strategies. It seemed that these strategies were only taught in the English/language arts classes only.
Overall the school is considered as in need of improvement/making progress. The school is on track in attaining excellence.
I have seen few activities utilized by my CT that centers on how the students should be reading as science readers. He did spend a little time teaching them some outlining skills to aid in comprehension. The only time I heard the term differentiated instruction was in a team meeting of teachers where there was some discussion on the need for the teachers to work on differentiated instruction coming from the leadership team.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Overall the SALT survey for Westerly Middle School was positive. If the feedback was not positive, the survey provided acheivable goals for improvement. Through personal experience, I would agree with the SALT survey conclusions that this is a great school with many aspects above the standard, however there are many ways in which this school could still improve.
Some positive aspects the survey expressed was the compassion of the teachers. The teachers are open to change and improvement, and work well collaborativly. Especially in a middle school setting, the teachers are compassionate, and the team structure of the school seems to adhere to the student's needs.
There is room for improvement in many areas of the school. According to the SALT survey, students do not feel as though there are common and clear expectations throughout the school. Students are also lacking skills in reading comprehension and deep understanding of the texts that they are reading. This then creates problems when the students are expressing themselves through writing. From observations here, I can see the lack of writing skills and reading comprehension in the science classroom. Reccomendations for the school includes having minimum reading requirements with accountability. It would be great to have students enter the middle school with a better grasp on reading comprehension, but as they do not, in general, the mandatory reading requirement with accountabilty seems like a good idea and should be implemented.
Westerly Middle School has great feedback, and the administrators and teacher need to work on a few more extremely important skills to make this middle school the best environment for the students.
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Westerly Middle School's SALT revealed strengths in several categories. The building itself is designed into 'pods' which each are a community within a community and establish a safe place for the students to feel at home. The mathematics skills were shown in most classes that ran well in the comfortable calm atmosphere of the school and its staff. The students problem solving skills are also developed in multiple classroom under various conditions and have begun taking both math and problem solving out of the classroom environment. These strengths show their weaknesses in greater light as the students reading and writing skills are underdeveloped. They are not able to express themselves well and communicate through writing in all classes. While the main subject of English covers it other classroom teachers do not follow through with the specific skills for their classroom. While reading time is provided, how to do it is left to the student to muddle through on their own. The real world applications of what the student are leaning however does encourage the student to do their best while the hands on side gives them first hand experience. The classrooms themselves are not diversified to their potential in all the areas in which this would be best for the students. Technology is also a bit lost in some of the classrooms where it may be mentioned but the students to not get to work with it themselves. The pod set up speaks well for the main team teacher to work together however the allied arts teachers are not brought in to work with them even when the students spend part of their day in the allied arts as well as their own team.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Listed below are the commendations and recommendations from the SALT team to Gaudet Middle School. This report was taken from 2004, and I believe the school has already taken many of the recommendations and addressed the classrooms and needs to improve the school. I have had the opportunity to go out to the 5th, 6th, and 7th grade classes and all of them had at least one group activity or an opportunity to share and counsel with each other during the period that I visited them. I have observed, especially in my CT's room, that students seldom work in isolation (except during a test or quiz) and are constantly sharing ideas with one another, seeking out affirmation or a new point of view on their thoughts. Some students may feel comfortable to do this freely, but my CT has definitely had a role in promoting classroom camraderie because she always asks them to share their reponses or discuss with their neighbor before giving an answer for the whole class.
I also noticed that teacher seem to work together and share ideas when planning an activity. They also seek input from co-workers before forging ahead with a new idea. This strengthens teacher relationships and I think the students pick up on that, which also improves their teacher relationships and even peer relationships.
The commendations or strengths were noted of Gaudet already remain the same, and I think they are some of the most important qualities to have as students and teachers. It makes teaching much easier when there is respectful classroom behavior and students/teachers acknowledge each other as equal human beings. It helps that many of the students come from a well-rounded home enviroment, but from watching all the different teachers, I can tell that their dedication to exemplifying respect and instilling it in their students plays an important role, too.
STRENGTHS
Respectful classroom behavior
Student centered co-curricular classes
Interdisciplinary program in technology
Are respectful and well-mannered in their classrooms
Excellent opportunities for professional development
Thorough self-study
NEEDS/ WEAKNESSES
Work in isolation
Want more hands-on learning
Do not have opportunities to problem solve
Raise the level of expectations for student and teacher learning.
Develop instruction strategies that address the multiple learning styles of the students in your classrooms.
Provide structures that model and support collaborative learning.
Use the team structure effectively to collaborate your work in learning and teaching.
Use the team structure to create strategies for meeting the developmental needs of the young adolescent.
Provide students with daily opportunities to problem solve in all subject areas especially math.
Give students more opportunities to think critically and analytically.
Write daily in all classrooms.
Identify a common vision for the future of Joseph H. Gaudet Middle School.
Use the self-study results and your school improvement plan to create a true middle school learning community.
Strengthen the identity of the cluster teams, and build school spirit.
Define leadership roles clearly, and implement them in a pro-active manner.
Outline a discipline policy with consequences, and enforce those consequences consistently
Expose students with special needs to grade-level curriculum with proper modifications.
Improve overall communication with parents and community.
Develop opportunities for common planning time.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
North Kingstown Senior High School reports that it performs very well in Writing, scoring above the state average. Students also report good grades, above the state average in reading. One of their weaknesses I found was that learning by interacting within their communities is reported to be hardly ever, less than a couple times a year. They have a very low minority population and I believe that I would be able to benefit this school by getting them to read a little bit more about their community as an initiative to become interested in this idea and helping them get to discover at least some diversity within their school.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The major area of concern for Chariho HS is the availability of space to function. In the SALT report, funding has been approved for construction of a new wing. The library will also be moved and the learning and administrative spaces will be more spacious and functional. It is very apparent to me that Chariho needs additional space. For example, when attempting to leave the classroom after the bell rings to get a drink of water across the school, by the time I re-enter the classroom the second bell will have already rung. This is because the school is so incredibly crowded, and walking to the next class involved walking at a very slow pace behind a wall of students entering and exitinbg classrooms and checking their lockers for materials. The proposed limit for the school is 550 students, while the current size is over 1400. They need more space.
ANother area of improvement in the SALT report is in cooperative learning throughout the department. In department meetings, teachers are infomed to provide individualized tests designed by teachers to be distributed to the head of the dept. The head of the cepot then determines the questions that will be given to every student in the biology, gen science classrooms. This process is done for a quiz and a unit test every quarter, as well as a formal lab. This is to ensure that students are recieving similar information that can be useful when taking the NECAPs, and also to ensure that each classroom can be held accountable for the information on the quiz, test, lab material. It is a form of accountability as well as practice for standardized testing.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey for westerly middle school showed its commendations for among other things the design and available technology. The survey did however go on to point out the deficiency of underutilizing the technology that it had praised. There is no argument that the schools design is perfect for a middle school. The Pods create an atmosphere indicative of bond building and trust for both team teachers and students. Westerly middle school also has the most impressive technology available in any school I have seen in Rhode Island. While the SALT survey recognized the presence of the technology, they suggested the utilization of it was lacking. Westerly Middle schools improvement plan emphasizes the importance of an increase of collaboration between teachers. The increase of collaboration includes everything from team meeting time to district meetings.
In my first day in the school, I was able to see the clear advantages of the design of the building. In my visits to the school not only have my initial thoughts about the advantages of the schools design been reaffirmed I find new reasons to be impressed everyday. While the technology may have been underutilized in 2007 when the survey was done, there is no shortage of its use presently. In the two weeks, I have been student teaching I have already used two different projectors, a desktop, a laptop, a digital camera, a laptop cart for the students, and a document camera. While the Pods separate me from the other classrooms, I know that my team utilizes the schools arsenal of technology daily. The schools plan to improve collaboration among teachers is also well in effect. I have observed many different types of meeting the school has implemented to achieve its goals. There is a team meeting everyday, a grade level meeting once a week, a leadership meeting every other Thursday morning, and IEP meeting whenever necessary. Meeting such as IEP and parent teacher conferences are usually done during the teachers personal planning period to avoid canceling a team meeting.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey data finds Coventry High School to posess dedicated faculty who work well together, numerous opportunities for reading, writing, and problem solving, and specialized expertise. The survey also makes the following suggestions for improvement:I've always felt that by tying the subject matter that you are presenting into students' everday lives, or at least showing them how it relates to their lives, makes a bigger impact on their motivation to pay attention to what you (as the teacher) are talking about. Facilitating instruction can also be a tricky task due to time constraints on classes, especially large classes. Acting as a guide for instruction rather than a conveyer of information (or a dictator) takes time to accomplish but I feel that the student is more apt to retain the information if they are coming up with the answers to their questions instead of having the answer just handed to them. They are forced to think about the problem at hand, use their prior knowledge/logical thinking skills, and come up with an answer on their own using the guidence of the instructor for assistence. I see a great deal of practical application and real-life connection of subject material in many of the classes that I have observed at Coventry High School. There is also a great deal of encouragement/motivation being demonstrated by the faculty toward their students. The one thing that I do not see a tremendous amount of is facilitating instruction, which in my opinion, can be very difficult to accomplish in the average high school classroom setting. In higher level classes this is often accomplished very easily and without a great deal of time elapsed due to the motivation of the students and their ability to problem solve. I do see evendence of this at Coventry HS. The toss-up between using this with a lower-level class is do you sacrifice the quality of the information retained or the quantitiy of information you are able to present. I find that lower performing students often are easily frustrated (causing them to become less motivated) when trying to solve the problem on their own without being walked through it, which takes time. If they are just given the example and then the answer, they often do not get very much out of the lesson. I think the school realizes this because I see efforts to find a balance between quality of instruction and quantity of instruction.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Fortunately, my CT was actually a member of the school-improvement committee last year. The biggest issue he said was the lack of security. Currently, the school has implemented a security plan that allows open-access to the school during the morning hours (when buses arrive). After that the school is locked-down and the only way to get in is through the front door. One of the secretary's must buzz you in after you state you purpose for coming in. Although this system is not perfect, and obviously there are still situations where people can get in and out of the school unauthorized; it is an exponential increase over the old-system.---
Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Based on the 2007-2008 SALT survey reports for North Kingstown High School:
Strengths at NK include:
- Teachers rate attitudes toward educational practices high, including:
- Citizenship, social competence, and critical thinking
- Small group instruction
- Integration and interdisciplinary practices
- Authentic mastery assessment and instruction
- Teachers have parent contact and involvement at least once a quarter throughout the school year- Teachers monitor individual student strengths often
- Teachers use rubrics and scoring sheets often to evaluate student work
- Group problem solving and small group discussion are used several times a month to weekly
- Students are assessed through a variety of methods (short answer, multiple choice, worksheets, textbook problems)
- Teachers disagree that students are disruptive in the classroom
- A developed curriculum
- School is flexible with schedules in regards to regrouping students or modifying the length of periods
- Parents are involved in their children's education
- Teachers feel supported by local and national teacher unions
- Most teachers have never felt the fear of being hurt or bothered by a student at school and felt the need to bring personal protection to school
- Overall, students perceive a positive school climate
- 80% of students think they will graduate from high school (close to the actual graduation rate)
- Student attendance is 90% on average
- Technology is often used in school (student and teacher use)
- Parents feel NK is a good school and that the school is supported by the community
Weaknesses/Areas to improve at NK include:
- Teachers tend to disagree with the importance of heterogeneous grouping and inclusion in their individual classroom
- Teachers rarely ever teach interdisciplinary units
- Teachers need to identify student learning styles in an effort to match instruction to student strengths and needs
- Small group active instruction are only used a few times a month
- Teachers report a lack in (team) planning time
Based on the above mentioned needs at NK, I see the following in my classes:
- Teaches disagreeing with heterogeneous groupings
- Very little interdisciplinary units
- Individual student learning styles not being considered
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
According to the Salt Visit Report Westerly Middle School have both strengths and weaknesses. I will address both of those here.Strengths
The Westerly Middle school is able to create a comfortable learning environment in which students are comfortable taking risks and chances. The school within a school form of the pod (team) areas is huge in helping to foster that. Additionally the teachers on effective teams spend a large amount of time collaborating daily in an effort to help their students achieve their best. With this practice no student is left behind. Furthermore teachers are passionate and open to change that will improve instruction. Numeracy is also taught very well across all content areas. As an example of this would be the riptides Team Economy which not only featured the typical student jobs and pay for the upcoming auction, but also included taxes, rentals (lockers and seats) and a banking and payroll process. A creative way of teaching numeracy in a real world scenario.
In need of Improvement
No school is perfect, and although WMS is very good at teaching numeracy, they could use improvement in teaching literacy skills. Although reading and writing are often used, they are not often used well. Many reading and writing assignments are surface level and superficial. Teachers need to give more direct guidance and feedback; in addition they all need to adopt the school wide writing rubric and procedure. They also need to incorporate more critical thinking into their lessons.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Strengths:
There are several strengths of Exeter West Greenwich Junior High School that are mentioned in the SALT visit report from December 8, 2000. The report goes in to detail about the community environment that the school portrays and how the parents, teacher, administrators, staff, and students all form this tight knit community for a positive environment for learning. The teachers are implementing the standards in the junior high and working with rubrics to enforce expectations. The students at Exeter West Greenwich are willing to learn, are respectful to others, and feel safe in their school. In the classroom, the teachers use various styles of presenting information including hands on activities, group work, community outreach, and projects. Teachers of all subjects are integrating writing into their curriculum. Overall, the sense of community at Exeter West Greenwich is outstanding and evident as the students, teachers, and parents work well together in a positive learning environment.
Needs:
There are some recommendations that were stated to improve the Exeter West Greenwich Junior High School. There seems to be a struggle to see a common future direction of the school from the faculty, administration, and staff. With a common vision, the school would have a stronger unity and goals to work towards together. Communication between the levels of the school community could be improved and would help develop clear procedures for discipline in the school. In the classroom, few students demonstrated complex problem solving techniques and real world connections would benefit the students. Teachers seem to be grading on assessment level only and not using assessments to identify personal needs of the students. It is clear that the students need to be challenged to a higher level of thinking and hold a responsibility to there own learning. The needs of the Junior High are numerated in the SALT visit report and I believe, with my experience thus far in the junior high school, that the improvements are being made.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
I found that Curtis Corner's school improvement plan was less than helpful, as it only contained information on improving by 2% in their math and reading NECAP scores, and an improved positive response on their SALT survey report. After attending a few team meetings, I found that the school's NECAP math and reading scores did go up by at least 2%. In regards to their hopes for the SALT survey, (this being a personal opinion) I wonder if they would ever have a goal of less than "the number of positive student responses on the SALT survey in the areas of percieved school climate, school safety, and school self-esteem will increase". Although, I suppose if they don't publish it, there would be no way of knowing that the school cared about their percieved school climate, safety, and self-esteem; and I'm sure that someone somewhere with a malicious intent would bring this up on the school. (Recieve brownie points from the helicopter parents!)I did find the SALT survey visit report itself to be rather helpful, as it really spoke truthfully. Curtis Corner is an overall good school, safe and comfortable for students. The community around the area is also fairly
The note about the teachers- "teachers in some classrooms engage their students in real world complex problem-solving learning activities" is true, since it only applies to some teachers, "however, many teachers still view themselves as information givers"; which I have found to be true- even with my own teacher. The school is struggling in its own way, with the prospect of budget cuts causing the sixth graders to be moved back to the elementary school, and seventh and eigth graders moved down the street to the other middle school in the district, Broad Rock. We shall see how it turns out, in my eyes and the eyes of the SALT survey, they are under brilliant leadership to take them through.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
The SALT survey for BRMS noted that the schools strong points include:
The conscientious efforts of teachers to provide a high quality education
The pride teachers take in their work and their eagerness to share their work with others
Teachers’ collaboration within their own individual teams
The good rapport teachers have with their students
Teachers’ genuine concern for the academic and social development of their students
I have noticed all of these characteristics first hand. Most notably teachers' collaboration with teams and teachers' eagerness to share their work. I have observed team meetings in 3 schools and the teachers at BR seam to be the most respectful, cooperative, and goal oriented of all. This strong report extends beyond mere team meetings and branches out across the entire faculty. Teachers are constantly sharing ideas with one another, helping with both in and out of school problems, and working collaboratively to give each student all of the necessary resources for success.
The survey recommended that teachers improve in the following areas:
Expand the current practice of providing detailed diagnostic written comments that students are able to use
to revise and improve their work school wide.
Examine and refine the current use of rubrics and checklists to ensure the appropriate use of each
assessment tool.
Provide “job-embedded” professional development that focuses on differentiated instruction, teaming
practices, establishing routines in the classroom that support cooperative learning, teaching reading in all
subject areas within a balanced literacy framework, creating analytical rubrics, and standards-based
instructional practices. When appropriate, capitalize on the talents that exist in this building for in-class
modeling and sharing.
I do not have much of a basis for comparison in this respect as these recommendations date back to 2006, but I can say that I have noticed that these areas are addressed in a number of ways. The first recommendation seams to focus on feed-back. My CT goes above and beyond providing students with lots of feedback. Students will get information not only on the science concepts of an assignment, but papers are ALWAYS marked for spelling, grammar and use of English in general. This gets students to think about their writing to a deeper level than in most science class rooms.
The second recommendation looks at the use of rubrics. Students in this science class have had a number of projects all with a through and easy to read rubric. Students are given the rubric in advance so they know exactly how their work will be grade.
Finally, as far as giving students personal development opportunities, students in this class have recently been given a project where they were asked to apply for a job as an organelle. Students had to think about their own skills and abilities and compare them to the functions of the cell parts to find a job they would be suited for. They had to fill out an application listing their skill, talents, etc. as well as obtain 2 recommendation letters from their pears. So students got experience in finding how their abilities could be suited for a job, filling out job applications, as well as writing recommendation letters.
Because I cannot compare BR today to BR 3 years ago it is hard to say if progress has been made, but I can see clear evidence that BR has put an effort into improving in the areas that the survey suggested.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
There are so many strengths that North Smithfield Middle School possesses that it would be difficult to list them all. What I first noticed during my placement at this school was the great atmosphere all around the school. Some middle schools implement strategies such as no bully zones to make sure that students are not making fun of other students. At North Smithfield Middle School there is no need for such policy because all the kids seem to get along great. There are very little issues with fighting at the school, also not many issues involving bullying. When walking around the hallways it is difficult to distinguish who is friends with who because it seems like everyone is friends with each other. Obviouslly there are some exceptions, but it is definitely a friendly school community that I know from experience is not always present. The students are happy to be at school, most of them have a will to learn and a sense of belonging to the school and the community.In the SALT survey some of the improvements that were stated that the school needed to make was professional development days focusing on standard based education. I know that in the science department they have just received new books. They are great resources and a great tool for enhancing student learning, but for this year the teachers have to feel out how to pace themselves through the different books to cover all of the standards. The Mcdougall books line has multiple different books, such as Motion and Forces, and Matter and Energy. The teachers are learning how to use these new book resources as a guide, but still get through the standards which they need to cover throughout the year. I am sure that this year will be difficult for them, but in years to come these Mcdougall resources are going to be a great tool to enhance student learning.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Upon reviewing the Salt Survey data for Slater Middle School I discovered the following information. Slater Middle School Is characterized as having a strong leadership team and a well written school improvement plan which has not yet been fully implemented. There is good communication between the leadership team and the community as well as with the teachers. There is a sense of pride for all involved which is indicative of the weel developed sense of caring by a majority of the teachers who go (the extra mile).The school has cored well above average in mathematical skills, average in reading and writing skills and below average in mathematical problem solving.
Improvement by teachers in using differentiated teaching was noted as an area in need of improvemnt. The school was lacking in the teaching of reading strategies. It seemed that these strategies were only taught in the English/language arts classes only.
Overall the school is considered as in need of improvement/making progress. The school is on track in attaining excellence.
I have seen few activities utilized by my CT that centers on how the students should be reading as science readers. He did spend a little time teaching them some outlining skills to aid in comprehension. The only time I heard the term differentiated instruction was in a team meeting of teachers where there was some discussion on the need for the teachers to work on differentiated instruction coming from the leadership team.
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Describe your school's strengths and needs based on a school improvement document, such as the school's SALT visit report, its SALT survey data, or its school improvement plan.
Overall the SALT survey for Westerly Middle School was positive. If the feedback was not positive, the survey provided acheivable goals for improvement. Through personal experience, I would agree with the SALT survey conclusions that this is a great school with many aspects above the standard, however there are many ways in which this school could still improve.
Some positive aspects the survey expressed was the compassion of the teachers. The teachers are open to change and improvement, and work well collaborativly. Especially in a middle school setting, the teachers are compassionate, and the team structure of the school seems to adhere to the student's needs.
There is room for improvement in many areas of the school. According to the SALT survey, students do not feel as though there are common and clear expectations throughout the school. Students are also lacking skills in reading comprehension and deep understanding of the texts that they are reading. This then creates problems when the students are expressing themselves through writing. From observations here, I can see the lack of writing skills and reading comprehension in the science classroom. Reccomendations for the school includes having minimum reading requirements with accountability. It would be great to have students enter the middle school with a better grasp on reading comprehension, but as they do not, in general, the mandatory reading requirement with accountabilty seems like a good idea and should be implemented.
Westerly Middle School has great feedback, and the administrators and teacher need to work on a few more extremely important skills to make this middle school the best environment for the students.